John Reed. Who lies at the Kremlin wall? The Mysterious Life of John Reed Who is John Reed

The street where we live in St. Petersburg is named after John Reed. There are also streets named after John Reed in the city of Serpukhov near Moscow and in Astrakhan. But not everyone knows who John Silas Reed is and what did he do to deserve such an honor? I once asked several housemates if they knew anything about this man. Middle-aged people confuse him with the American singer Dean Reed, famous in the 60s and 70s; many do not know about either one at all.

And this man lived a short but very bright, eventful life. Born on October 22, 1887, in the American city of Portland on the Pacific coast, he died in Moscow on October 19, 1920 from typhus, three days short of his thirty-third birthday. People of the older generation will remember that in high school history classes, teachers briefly talked about John Reed and recommended reading his book about the Great October Socialist Revolution, “10 Days that Shook the World.” (Ten Days that Shook the World).

But in the fifties of the last century (as in earlier periods), this book was not easy to find in libraries; it was not popularized in the USSR, it was published in small editions, in an abridged version. According to many, one of the reasons for this is that there is not a word about Stalin in the book, but the name of Trotsky is mentioned in every chapter. I first read John Reed's book while studying at university, and even then in an abridged version. And now I found its full text on the Internet and read it in one sitting. It can be called one of best books about the October Revolution.

Much has been written about the short but colorful life of John Silas Reed; there is even a book in the “Lives of Remarkable People” series. I will only very briefly retell his biography. He was born into a wealthy family in Portland, Oregon. His mother, Margaret Greene Reed, was the daughter of a wealthy Portland businessman, and his father, Charles Jerome Reed, served as a representative large company for the production of agricultural machinery.

John Reed studied at best schools, A higher education received at the most prestigious American University, Harvard, where children of only the richest and most privileged classes of society studied. John was an enthusiastic person, played sports, and actively participated in a diverse student life. It is surprising that, coming from a prosperous bourgeois environment, during these years he took part in meetings of the Socialist Club, and this had a certain influence on his views.

After graduating from the University, he began working as a journalist. The beginning of the twentieth century throughout the world was marked by active protests of the proletariat, and the topic of revolutions was of great interest to Reed. A rebel by nature, he was always where there were strikes, labor unrest, in the thick of the class struggle. He wrote vivid reports about the strike of textile workers in the city of Paterson, for which he even ended up briefly in prison, then about the uprising of miners at the Rockefeller mines in Colorado, where the authorities carried out brutal reprisals against the rebels and their families.

In late 1913, John Reed was sent by Metropolitan Magazine to a turbulent Mexico to report on the Mexican Revolution, where an army of landless peasants rose up to fight under the command of the legendary Pancho Villa. The result of the trip, in addition to numerous articles for newspapers and magazines, was the book “Rising Mexico.” Reed writes about poor Mexican peasants, from whom priests for decades continued to take a tax that had long been abolished by law, about the battles in which he happened to get into along with Pancho Villa’s army. And of course, about the people’s leader himself, who, having only learned to read and write at the age of forty, opened numerous schools in the cities he occupied.

The First World War of 1914-1918 began, and John Reed was everywhere where the guns roared. He tries to see the world war from two sides - first through the eyes of the Entente troops, and then, having moved to the other side of the front line, from the German trenches. He visited Italy, France, England, Germany, Greece, Serbia and even Russian Empire, where he arrived in 1915, and was soon arrested for bold revelations of the tsarist government. In 1916, he returned to the USA and edited the revolutionary magazine “Masses”. And in the summer of 1917, Reed again hurries to Russia, which has overthrown the autocracy.

The Russian Revolution captured him completely! The passport of an American journalist opened doors for him on both sides of the fighting. On October 25, 1917 (in his book he uses new style dates and calls the November Revolution) Reed first penetrates the Winter Palace, occupied by cadets. A group of Americans walks unhindered through the halls of the palace, memorizing the smallest details: the floor strewn with cigarette butts, torn paintings. And at the end of the day he is already here again as part of the Red Guards marching to storm the Winter Palace.

He was omnipresent: at numerous rallies, at meetings of various committees, congresses, in the Smolny and Tauride palaces, he went to the soldiers near Petrograd, met with Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, with the right and the left... In his preface to the book, John Reed writes: “This book is a clot of history, history in the form in which I observed it. It does not pretend to be more than a detailed account of the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviks led the workers and soldiers in Russia state power and handed it over to the Soviets." And further: “In this book, the first of a series of books on which I am working, I will have to limit myself to recording those events that I have seen and experienced personally or which are confirmed by reliable evidence; it is preceded by two chapters that briefly outline the situation and causes of the November Revolution.”

He collected material everywhere, moving from place to place - complete sets of Pravda, Izvestia, all the proclamations, brochures, posters and posters. He had a special passion for posters. Every time a new poster appeared, he did not hesitate to tear it off the wall if he could not get it any other way. In those days, posters were printed in such numbers and with such speed that it was difficult to find a place for them on fences. Cadet, social-revolutionary, Menshevik, left-wing Social Revolutionary and Bolshevik posters were pasted on top of each other in such thick layers that Reed once tore off a layer of sixteen posters, one under the other. His friend and colleague Albert Rhys Williams recalled: “Bursting into my room and waving a huge paper slab, he exclaimed: “Look! In one fell swoop I grabbed the entire revolution and counter-revolution!”

Even in the preface to the book, Reed writes: “In the struggle, my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the story of those great days, I have tried to view events through the eye of a conscientious chronicler, interested in recording the truth.”

In the spring of 1918, John Reed returned to America and in record short term- in less than a month, working all day long, he writes the book “Ten Days That Shook the World.” The book has twelve chapters, and after the preface, before the first chapter, Reed gives detailed introductory remarks and explanations, where he characterizes everything political parties, the most important organizations, central committees and other organizations in Russia. Naturally, it was incredibly difficult to publish such a book; several copies of the manuscripts were confiscated. But still, in March 1919, she was released. On the first copy, John Reed wrote: “To my publisher Horatio Livewright, who nearly went bankrupt while printing this book.” For the brave Livewright was the only one in New York who decided to publish it.

The bourgeois American press refused to publish Reed's materials on Russia, and he created his own magazines, Revolutionary Age and Communist. In 1919, he became one of the organizers of the Communist Labor Party of America, formed from a breakaway left wing of the Socialist Party, and edited its organ, the Voice of Labor. As a delegate of the Communist Party of America, John Reed came to Moscow in 1920 for the Second Congress of the Comintern, but soon fell ill with typhus and died. He was buried with great honors at the Kremlin wall, where at that time the most devoted heroes of the revolution were buried. Anyone who has been on an excursion to the Lenin Mausoleum and the Necropolis near the Kremlin walls will remember that on the granite tombstone of this American the words are carved: “John Reed, delegate of the Third International, 1920.”

John Silas Reed, journalist and author of Ten Days That Shook the World. It was his version of the October events that gave the highest assessment: “I wholeheartedly recommend this work to the workers of all countries.” Vladimir Ilyich wanted the book to be translated into all languages and published in millions of copies. I did not agree with this assessment, since John Reed, in contrast, often mentions it. But he did not dare to shoot the book, which had received the blessing of Ilyich himself; it was only sent into exile, hidden in the farthest corner - the Turukhansky region - of the library cabinet. Therefore, it was not easy to read it then.

An American was buried near the Kremlin wall. On the memorial plaque, his name stands next to the name of Inessa Armand (both died in 1920), to whom Lenin was so partial.

And this fact suggests that the old Bolshevik guard considered Reed one of their own. IN Soviet times it was forbidden to voice anything other than the fact that he was a convinced socialist and internationalist (Reed was a member of the executive committee of the Comintern), but later it appeared Additional Information. And that’s good, it’s always useful to know a little more canonical texts.

John Reed was from a wealthy family, studied at Harvard, and even then participated (quite legally) in the work of the socialist club. And later, having started a journalistic career, he worked in publications that were very different in their orientation. In Soviet times, they focused on left-wing newspapers and magazines, carefully emphasizing how step by step John Reed walked towards the correct understanding. Although in fact he collaborated fruitfully with the right. For example, with Metropolitan magazine, which belonged to a partner of the famous tycoon Morgan. This omnivorousness of Reed was usually explained as follows: he collaborated with the right for the sake of earning money, and with the left for the soul.

And John Reed wrote not only about politics, although he was really drawn to the socialists. That’s why they arrested him for the first time during the famous strike in the American Patterson.

But he was no less drawn to sensations, revelations, and generally to those places where it was hot.

So he found himself in the thick of the Mexican revolution, after which the first book that brought him fame, “Mexico Rising,” appeared, where Reed wrote sympathetically about the local rebel Pancho Villa. However, he went to Mexico not so much for ideological reasons (Pancho Villa is not a socialist at all), but because it was hot there. Remember: “How did you end up here? - They shot.” So Reed was always drawn to where they were shooting. In addition, reports from hot spots are always in demand. For the same reason, John Reed later ended up in Europe on.

This is where it’s worth remembering the non-canonical version. According to American economist and historian Anthony Sutton, Reed was a double agent for the Kremlin and Wall Street or an intermediary between them. At first glance, the version is exotic. And one of the critics even called the doctor of sciences and professor a fool. And this, of course, happens. However, the author cites a lot of materials from American archives and has never seen evidence anywhere that these materials are fakes. They argue about the researcher’s conclusions, but the evidence base itself is not touched. And conclusions... everyone can draw their own conclusions. Consequently, Sutton’s version has the right to life.

Judging by Sutton's data, Reed's close connection with large American capital and the White House began during the Mexican Revolution.

The very next day (what amazing speed) Sands - not the last person in the American banking world - writes an urgent request to Frank Polk, who was acting as US Secretary of State at that moment, stating that the journalist is ready to offer the government any information about Russia.

Sands also reports that he intended to personally edit the memo written by Reed, but due to circumstances was unable to do so. And at the end the following comment: "I think the best policy would be... to use such people in formulating our policies... He is not a completely balanced person, but... is susceptible to careful leadership and may well be useful." And in this case, everything ended well for John Reed.

The next document tells about Reed’s arrest in Abo (Finland), where he was detained simultaneously with American, English and German passports. In addition, the journalist illegally carried with him a decent amount of money, diamonds, Soviet and film. And again the same actors intervened: Mr. Sands, Metropolitan magazine and the US State Department.

socialist revolutionaries."

According to the researcher, this is not the case. American monopolists could agree to both a centralized and a centralized Russia, but not to a decentralized free Russia. Anthony Sutton is convinced that decentralization and democracy in Russia did not meet the economic interests of American monopolies. They foresaw the ineffectiveness of the planned socialist economic system, and therefore hoped that they would be able to come to an agreement with the Bolsheviks and gradually subjugate the entire Russian market.

Of course, this was not the official position of the United States, but who and when stopped American tycoons from playing soldiers or world politics?

As for John Reed, Sutton's book raises a question that has yet to be answered. Who really lies at the Kremlin wall: an agent of the Comintern, an agent of Morgan, a double agent? Or was the journalist simply used in the dark?

The name of John Reed, a famous American journalist who wrote the book “10 Days That Shook the World” about the events of October, was known to almost everyone in Soviet times. The ubiquitous reporter from a distant country became a real hero in Russia: an unsurpassed chronicler of the revolution, an ardent communist and an extraordinary person. His biography was even published in the series “The Lives of Remarkable People,” which was a considerable honor at that time. Died in October 1920 from typhus, the young American was buried near the Kremlin wall, where revolution heroes were buried at that time. His short life, like a flash, left a bright mark and many questions that historians still cannot answer unequivocally.

John Reed lived only less than 33 years, but his short and brilliant life path became a legend, the mystery of which many tried to unravel. His works “Mexico Rising” and especially “Ten Days That Shook the World” were widely known in their time. But what kind of person was their author? “Why did it happen that a boy born into a rich and privileged family turned away from the material things he could have enjoyed and began to live so fully the life of the oppressed? How did a child, surrounded by excessive care, frail in body and weak in spirit, grow into a man who boldly rode under a hail of bullets and was not afraid of prisons, where he ended up more than once during his adventurous life? How did a boy whose ancestors were mostly hardened businessmen... become one of the most outstanding literary talents of his time? — Reed’s compatriot Tamara Hovey wrote in her memoirs.

John Reed was born on October 22, 1887 in the American city of Portland on the Pacific coast, in the family of a wealthy businessman. His father was the kind of man Jack London portrayed in his stories of the American West. It was from his father that John Reed inherited a sharp mind and a bold, courageous spirit.

His brilliant talents manifested themselves early, and after graduating from school he was sent to study at the most famous university in America - Harvard, where children only from the richest and most privileged sections of society studied. John Reed spent four years within the walls of the prestigious Harvard, managing to organize a socialist club among the students - the offspring of the nouveau riche and the rich! When this became known, D. Reed's mentors consoled themselves with the thought that the socialist club was nothing more than a simple boyish whim. “This radicalism will pass away from him,” they said, “as soon as he steps out of the college gates into the wide arena of life.”

When John Reed completed his course, received his degree and went out into the wide world, he conquered it in an incredibly short time - with his energy, enthusiasm, love of life and, of course, his pen. While still at university, in his role as editor of the satirical sheet Lampoon, he showed himself to be a master of a light and brilliant style. Not limiting himself to satire, he wrote romantic poems, which he read at student parties. Over time, the pride of Portland, a graduate of the prestigious Harvard, a poet and a favorite of women, John Reed, became seriously interested in writing.

Dramas and stories began to come out from his pen. Literary creativity led John Reed to journalism: he began collaborating with left-wing political publications - New Review, The Masses, The Metropolitan Magazine. Publishers bombarded the young journalist with offers; large newspapers increasingly ordered him to review the most important events in foreign life. To those who wanted to be in the know modern life, it was enough to follow John Reed, because wherever anything significant happened, he invariably appeared. A rebel by nature, Reed was always present where there were strikes, strikes and labor unrest. In 1912, he was in raging Mexico, where an army of peasants rose up to fight under the command of the legendary Pancho Villa, in 1913 - in Paterson, where a strike of textile workers turned into an open uprising. In the spring of 1914, Reed wrote the essay “The Colorado War,” in which he described the massacre of striking miners in Ludlow. It is no coincidence that the Czech-Austrian writer and anti-fascist E. E. Kisch subsequently called John Reed “a journalist on the barricades.”

With the beginning (1914-1918) D. Reed kept up with wherever the guns roared. Danger never frightened him; on the contrary, it was his native element. The young journalist was always in the thick of things, making his way into forbidden areas, to the front lines. He tried to see the world war from two sides - first through the eyes of the Entente troops, and then, having moved to the other side of the front line, from the German trenches. As America entered the war, Reed underwent medical surgery that resulted in the loss of one of his kidneys. Doctors declared him unfit for military service. “The loss of a kidney may free me from serving in a war between two nations,” he declared, “but it does not exempt me from serving in a war between classes.”

John Reed visited Italy, France, England, Germany, Greece, Serbia and the Russian Empire, where he arrived in 1915 and was soon arrested for his bold revelations of the tsarist government.

In 1916, Reed returned to the United States, where he began editing the revolutionary magazine Masses. But a year later he again hurried to Russia, which was on the verge of revolution. It seemed that already in the first revolutionary skirmishes of Petrograd, the American journalist recognized the approach of a full-scale class war.

In August 1917, John Reed arrived in Petrograd with his wife, American writer and journalist Louise Bryant-Trullinger. The Russian Revolution captured him completely! The Bolsheviks conquered the American rebel with their energy and recklessness. He wrote about them with undisguised sympathy. The passport of an American journalist opened doors for him on both sides of the barricades. On October 25, 1917 (in his book he uses dates according to the new style and calls the November Revolution) Reed first entered the Winter Palace, occupied by cadets, and at the end of the day he was already here again as part of the Red Guards marching to storm the Winter Palace. He was omnipresent: at numerous rallies, at meetings of various committees, congresses, in the Smolny and Tauride palaces; met with Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, with the right and the left... He will write about all this in his famous book “Ten Days that Shook the World.”

He collected material for it everywhere and whatever he could find - sets of newspapers, proclamations, brochures and posters. He had a special passion for posters. Every time a new poster appeared somewhere, he would tear it off the wall without thinking. In those days, posters were printed in such numbers and with such speed that it was difficult to find room for them all: Socialist Revolutionary, Menshevik and Bolshevik posters were pasted one on top of the other, so that one day Reed tore off a layer of sixteen posters, one under the other. His friend and colleague A.R. Williams, with whom D. Reed worked in the Bureau of Revolutionary Propaganda at the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, recalled: “Bursting into my room and waving a huge paper slab, he exclaimed: “Look!” In one fell swoop I grabbed the entire revolution and counter-revolution!’”

John Reed wrote “Ten Days That Shook the World” in America, where he returned in the spring of 1918. The book was created in record time—less than a month: Reed worked all day long. In the preface to the book, he wrote: “In the struggle, my sympathies were not neutral. But in recounting those great days, I tried to view the events through the eye of a conscientious chronicler, interested in capturing the truth... This book is a clot of history, history in the form in which I observed it. It does not pretend to be more than a detailed account of the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviks, led by workers and soldiers, seized state power in Russia and transferred it to the hands of the Soviets. The Bolsheviks, it seems to me, are not a destructive force, but the only party in Russia that has a creative program and sufficient power to implement it. Whatever others may think about Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the Russian Revolution is one of the greatest events in the history of mankind, and the rise of the Bolsheviks is a phenomenon of world significance. Just as historians are looking for the slightest details about the Paris Commune, so they will want to know everything that happened in Petrograd in November 1917, what spirit the people were at that time, what their leaders were like, what they said and what they did. That’s what I was thinking about when I wrote this book.”

Publishing the book, which described the first days of the revolutionary events in Russia with unusual vividness and force, turned out to be difficult: several copies of the manuscripts were confiscated. But in March 1919 it was still possible to release it. On the first copy, John Reed wrote: “To my publisher Horatio Livewright, who nearly went bankrupt while printing this book.” The brave Liveright was the only one in New York who decided to publish Ten Days. The book, which had a worldwide resonance, was highly appreciated by V.I. Lenin: “Having read John Reed’s book “Ten Days That Shook the World” with enormous interest and unflagging attention, I wholeheartedly recommend this work to workers of all countries. I would like to see this book distributed in millions of copies and translated into all languages, since it gives a truthful and unusually vividly written account of events that are so important for understanding what the proletarian revolution is, what the dictatorship of the proletariat is.”

The book about the first days of the October Revolution became John Reed's most famous work. It may seem strange that such a book about Russia could be written by a foreigner, an American, who does not know the language of the people, their way of life... But Reed was not an indifferent outside observer, he was a passionate revolutionary who saw deep meaning in those events. This understanding gave him that visual acuity, without which it was impossible to describe what was happening. Now, many years after the October events, which turned the life of Russia and then the whole world upside down, one can have different attitudes towards “Ten Days That Shook the World”, but one thing is true: the book was written sincerely, its author firmly believed in a bright future humanity. Hence his conviction that “the Russian revolution is one of the greatest events in the history of mankind, and the rise of the Bolsheviks is a phenomenon of world significance.” It is quite possible that if John Reed had lived longer than 33 years, he would have been disappointed in the Bolshevik coup, but he was not destined to learn about the processes of 1937-1938. in the USSR, neither about Stalin’s camps, nor about the tragedy of the entire people.

After the publication of his book, John Reed made about twenty campaign trips across America, giving fiery speeches at countless mass meetings in defense of the October Revolution in Russia. In the spring of 1919, he was elected editor of the new newspaper, the New York Communist. In August and September of the same year, Reed took part in the creation of the Communist Labor Party of the USA, formed from a breakaway left wing of the Socialist Party. In the fall of 1919, the “frantic reporter” secretly came to Russia, worked in Moscow, at the Comintern, and collected materials for a new book dedicated to the post-October period. In July 1920, he took part in the Second Congress of the Comintern. Shortly after this, the “singer of the revolution” John Reed fell ill with typhus and died on October 19, 1920. There were persistent rumors that he was poisoned. John Silas Reed was buried near the Kremlin wall, where the Bolsheviks buried their most devoted comrades. A monument in the form of a granite block was erected above his grave, on which a laconic inscription is carved: “John Reed, delegate of the Third International, 1920.”

In recent years, interest in the personality of the American journalist has increased again, but today his impeccable biography is called into question by some researchers. For example, US historian Anthony Sutton came to the sensational conclusion that John Reed was most likely a “double agent” of both the Kremlin and Wall Street, or an intermediary between them. From Sutton’s point of view, it is otherwise difficult to explain such close and benevolent attention of very influential persons in the United States to an ordinary journalist, one of the leaders of the US Communist Party - at the initial stage of its creation - and an active member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. It cannot but surprise, the historian notes, that as soon as Reed got into one or another trouble, of which there were many in his life, people immediately began to bother about him, who, according to generally accepted logic, would not worry about a person who openly sympathized with the Bolsheviks could. Judging by Sutton's data, John Reed had a close connection with large American capital and the White House during the Mexican Revolution. In any case, writes Sutton, “when during the First World War a journalist was detained in tsarist Russia with letters of recommendation from Bucharest, which he brought to anti-Russian individuals in Galicia, not only the editors of his native magazine Metropolitan stood up for him, which is quite natural, but also the owners of the publication - the largest bankers in the United States, after which Reed was immediately released." Sutton testifies that the archives of the American State Department contain documents about the repeated arrests and detentions of John Reed (in Norway, Finland) and his further releases after the intervention of Metropolitan magazine and the US State Department, as well as William Franklin Sands, who was the executive secretary of American International Corporation" and was a very influential person in the American business world. The most likely hypothesis, from the point of view of E. Sutton, is that “John Reed was in fact an agent of Morgan - perhaps only half aware of his dual role - that his anti-capitalist articles supported the valuable myth that all capitalists are in constant hostility with all socialist revolutionaries."

It is difficult for historians to find out the truth, but it will probably have to be done. Moreover, in addition to Sutton’s research, other works about the life of John Reed appear. For example, that the archives of the US Communist Party allegedly contain evidence of John Reed’s active participation in money laundering that Russia sent to America. So to the question of who is actually buried near the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow - a fiery communist, an agent of American tycoons or a “double agent” - historians have not given an exact answer and continue to argue about it.

V. M. Sklyarenko, I. A. Rudycheva, V. V. Syadro. 50 famous mysteries of the history of the 20th century

Plan
Introduction
1 Biography
1.1 Childhood. Studying at college and university
1.2 Beginning of a reporting career
1.3 War correspondent
1.4 Revolution in Russia

2 Addresses in Petrograd
3 Addresses in Moscow
4 Family
5 Works
6 Film adaptations and dramatizations
Bibliography

Introduction

John Silas Reed (English: John Silas Reed; October 22, 1887 Portland, USA - October 19, 1920, Moscow, RSFSR) - American journalist, communist, author of the famous book “Ten Days That Shook the World” (1919).

1. Biography

1.1. Childhood. Studying at college and university

John Reed was born on October 22, 1887, at his maternal grandmother's mansion in Portland, Oregon. His mother, Margaret Greene Reed, was the daughter of a wealthy Portland entrepreneur who became wealthy with the first gas plant in Oregon, the first iron plant on the West Coast, and Portland's waterworks. His father, Charles Jerome Reed, was sales representative large company producing agricultural machinery. His father quickly gained recognition in Portland business circles. John's parents married in 1886.

John's childhood was spent surrounded by sisters and servants, and all his friends and friends were offspring of the upper class. John's brother, Harry, was 2 years younger than him. Jack and his brother were sent to the newly founded Portland Academy, private school. John was talented and smart enough to pass exams in the subjects taught there, but he was bored and uninterested in studying for good grades, since he believed that teaching at school was dry and boring. In September 1904, John was sent to Morristown School in New Jersey to prepare for college because his father, who had never attended college, wanted his sons to attend Harvard.

John's first attempt to enter the university failed, but he entered the second, and in the fall of 1906 he began his studies at Harvard. Tall, handsome, cheerful, John took part in almost all student activities. He was a member of the cheerleading team, a member of the swim team, and participated in Drama Club meetings. He was a member of the editorial board of the student magazine Lampoon And Harvard Monthly, and also served as president of the Harvard student choir. John was not a member of the varsity football team, but excelled in less prestigious sports such as swimming and water polo.

Reed also took part in meetings of the Socialist Club, where his friend Walter Lippmann was president. Although Reed never became a member of this club, these meetings had a definite influence on his views. The club was absolutely legal, and constantly criticized the university leadership for not paying all university employees a living wage and petitioning for the creation of a course on socialism.

Reed graduated from Harvard in 1910 and began his travels that same summer. During his travels he visited England, France and Spain.

1.2. The beginning of a reporting career

John Reed wanted to become a journalist, and decided that appropriate place for a reporter's career, it was New York, where all the most important publications of that time were concentrated. Thanks to his university acquaintance with journalist Lincoln Steffens, who was engaged in journalistic revelations and who highly valued John for his intelligence and talent, it was easier to take the first step. Steffens helped Reed take a not very significant post at American Magazine - John's responsibilities included reading manuscripts, proofreading, and then editorial work. To earn more money, John took over the management position of the newly launched, quarterly magazine Landscape Architecture.

John settled in Greenwich Village, a newly emerging and thriving neighborhood of artists and poets. John Reed fell in love with New York, constantly exploring it and writing poetry about it. The magazines he worked for paid him regularly, but these were the earnings of a “freelance artist,” and John wanted to achieve some stability. For six months, John tried to publish his stories and essays about his six-month stay in Europe, receiving refusal everywhere. And yet he achieved success - the Saturday Evening Post newspaper agreed to publish his works. During the same year, Reed was featured in magazines Collier's , The Forum, And The Century Magazine. One of his poems was set to music by composer Arthur Foote, and the magazine The American offered him a position on the staff and began publishing it. John Reed's career was taking off.

His interest in social issues was sparked by his acquaintance with Steffens and Ida Tarbell. But quickly enough, John took a much more radical position than the one they adhered to. In 1913, John became a member of the magazine staff The Masses, where Max Eastman was the editor-in-chief and assisted by his sister Crystal. In this publication, John published more than 50 articles and reviews.

One of the main topics that interested him was revolution. He was first arrested at age 26 while participating in a labor strike in Patterson. The brutal suppression of workers' protests, as well as the short-term arrest that followed, made Reed's views even more radical. At this time, John became close to the syndicalist union "Industrial Workers of the World". John expressed his position and opinion about what happened in the article "War in Patterson", which was published in June.

In the fall of 1913, John was sent by the magazine Metropolitan Magazine to Mexico to prepare a report on the Mexican Revolution. John was stationed at Pancho Villa's camp for four months, and together with Villa served as a representative of the Constitutional Forces after their victory over the Federal forces at Torreon. This victory opened the way to Mexico City. During these 4 months, Reed published a series of reports on the Mexican Revolution, which established his reputation as a war journalist. John Reed deeply sympathized with the plight of the rebels and was strongly opposed to American intervention (which began shortly after he left Mexico). John warmly supported Villa, but Venustiano Carranza was indifferent to him. These Mexican reports were later republished in a book called "Mexico Rising", which was published in 1914.

On April 30, 1914, John arrived in Colorado, where the Ludlow Massacre had recently occurred. He stayed there for a little over a week, researching what happened, speaking at rallies on behalf of the miners, writing a vivid article “The Colorado War” and came to the conclusion that the class conflict in society was much more serious than he previously thought. John spent the summer of 1914 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with Mabel Dodge and her son, where they prepared Mexico Risen for publication and interviewed President Wilson on the Mexican Revolution.

1.3. War correspondent

Almost immediately after the outbreak of the First World War, John Reed, as a Metropolitan reporter, went to neutral (at that moment) Italy. Reed met his mistress, Mabel Dodge, and together they went to Paris. Reed believed that the war was just a new round of trade struggle between the imperialists. John did not sympathize with any of the participants in the war. In an unsigned article, "The Traders' War", which was published in The Masses in September 1914, John wrote:

"The real war, for which this outbreak of death and destruction is just an incident, began a long time ago. The war went on for decades, but we did not notice the battles of this war. This is a war of merchants."

“What is democracy doing in alliance with Tsar Nicholas? Was there liberalism in the dispersal of Gapon’s demonstrations, in the Odessa pogroms?...

"We socialists must hope, no, believe that because of these terrible bloodshed and terrible destruction, global social change, and we will be one step closer to our dream - Peace among People"

"This is not Our war."

John Reed, 1917

In France, John Reed was in apathy due to the censorship introduced during the war, and also because it was very difficult for him to get to the front. Reed and Mabel went to London, from where Mabel went to New York to help John from there. John spent the rest of 1914 in exile with the leader of the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa, where he wrote his book “Mexico Risen.”

1.4. Revolution in Russia

During the First World War he worked as a correspondent in Europe. In August 1917 he arrived in Petrograd, where he took part in the storming of the Winter Palace in October 1917. Later he wrote a book about these events in Russia - “Ten Days That Shook the World”, about which V. I. Lenin responded as follows:

Having read with the greatest interest and unflagging attention John Reed’s book: “Ten Days That Shook the World,” I wholeheartedly recommend this work to workers of all countries. I would like to see this book distributed in millions of copies and translated into all languages, since it gives a truthful and unusually vividly written account of events that are so important for understanding what the proletarian revolution is, what the dictatorship of the proletariat is.

Became one of the founders of the Communist Party of the USA; as its representative participated in the First Congress of the Comintern in 1919.

Died in Moscow from typhus. He was buried on Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

One of the streets in Serpukhov, in Astrakhan, as well as a street in the Nevsky district of St. Petersburg, is named after John Reed.

Addresses in Petrograd1917-1918 - Troitskaya street, 23, apt. 36. Addresses in Moscow

· Gagarinsky Lane, 11 ( former house architect N. G. Faleev).

In 1917 he married Louise Bryant. There were no children in the marriage. Louise attended the funeral of John Reed in Moscow. In 1924, Louise married the famous anti-communist W. Bullitt - the public was shocked not so much by the sharp change in her views, but by the fact that her daughter was born just 3 months after this marriage.